October 3rd, 2025
Zombies "Odessey and Oracle" Always Meant to Be Mono available in mono (in America) for first time in decades By: Michael FremerIf the music wasn't so interesting and singular, the story behind the album recorded in 1967 and released in 1968 would easily be more so. Dumped by Decca after having a string of great singles including "She's Not There", the group self-financed this project, recorded much of it at what later would be called Abbey Road Studios (with some at Olympic), signed to CBS, put out two singles and then this album released April, 1968 a month after the band... Read More
Comments: 6October 1st, 2025
Cécile McLorin Salvant's "Oh Snap" (!!) Our greatest singer gets funky By: Fred KaplanBack in 2016, while interviewing her for a New Yorker profile, I asked Cécile McLorin Salvant, who was 28 years old and just emerging as the era’s greatest jazz singer, whether she might cover contemporary pop tunes. The question made her wince. “There are some new songs that I really like,” she replied, “but I never think, ‘Maybe I’ll sing this song.’ I don’t care whether what I do is modern or of our time. I want to sing songs that have this timeless quality… I love... Read More
Comments: 0September 25th, 2025
Jazz Patterns.........Joe Henderson & Woody Shaw Real Gone Music reissues hard to find 1970 live recording By: Joseph W. WashekJazz Patterns is a live album recorded in 1970 by the same great Joe Henderson band that recorded the classic Milestone album, If You’re Not Part Of The Solution, You’re Part Of The Problem. Since its release in 1982 on the Everest Archive of Folk and Jazz Music label, Jazz Patterns has always been an elusive and mysterious album. Everest, once highly regarded by audiophiles, had by 1982 long fallen into the deepest depths of the budget label netherworld and... Read More
Comments: 0September 23rd, 2025
Deftones "Private Music" Proves Nu-Metal Still Has a Future The band's 10th album is one of their best By: Michael JohnsonLast month, Sacramento Nu-Metal band Deftones dropped their 10th studio album Private Music. Coincidentally, this album also marks nearly 30 years since their debut LP Adrenaline released in 1995. Deftones have come a long way in 30 years, and their longevity is rare, especially for a band associated with a style of music that mostly died off in the mid 2000s. But part of their staying power has been the musical creativity that has long elevated the group far above... Read More
Comments: 1September 22nd, 2025
Tom Petty "Wildflowers" One-Step Is it That Much Better? double 33 1/3, pressed on Neotech VR900-D2 vinyl By: Michael FremerTo be brief: compared to the version included in the deluxe box set of a few years ago, this re-mastered One-Step version cut by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering sounds soooo much better, it's kind of ridiculous.I took it to my friend Anthony Chiarella's (he's CEO of Specialty Sound & Vision, which distributes Gryphon among other products) and played it on his system during a meeting of the New York/N.J. Audio club and the reaction in the... Read More
Comments: 9September 22nd, 2025
Manzanara Mackay Post Roxy Produce Live Magic recorded live in Soho 2024 By: Michael FremerFollowing Roxy Music's epic and successful 2022 world tour, Phil and Andy decided they'd not had enough and so the two, along with original Roxy drummer Paul Thompson, went into the studio and in October 2023 released AM PM. They decided in March of 2024 to do some live shows based on the album and this is the result.Frankly, it's reassuring to know that Andy survived the Roxy tour because he appeared to be blowing his brains out and as cosmic,... Read More
Comments: 2September 16th, 2025
A Solo Piano Sonic Spectacular Intended For All Ears Featuring Female Composers double "One-Step" LP Set, or standard pressing, both put you in the room By: Michael FremerAlong with an Acoustical-Systems A*Stellar turntable to review, company founder and designer Dietrich Brakemeier brought along a remarkable sounding solo piano record his company sponsored produced and released on vinyl and CD last year, created using a purist minimal microphone technique, and Studer tape recorders. The venue was an old brewery—the Sudhaus—(which I assume translated to "suds house", the name given to my college fraternity living room), now a... Read More
Comments: 5September 15th, 2025
Elvis At RCA Studio C Hollywood Celebrated On A Double LP Set 5 CD set for obsessed completists By: Michael FremerIf you were a suburban white kid of a certain age and remember when Elvis appeared, seemingly from outer space, everything in your world changed (unless your parents were into Black music). Of course there was an Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen, and Milton Berle show "pre-reel" that you may have caught, but this person looked and sounded like no one else you'd ever seen before on television and it didn't appear to be an act. Even when Elvis goofed around... Read More
Comments: 0September 15th, 2025
Led Zeppelin Commemorates 50 Years of “Physical Graffiti” with a Commemorative “Live EP” A full Earls Court ‘75 release? Nope, just rehashing what’s already out! By: Dylan PegginThe lack of archival Led Zeppelin releases in recent years makes the divided 2014-15 remaster campaign, complemented with unreleased studio rarities, a treasure trove in hindsight. Scholarly knowledge of seasoned collectors on what’s presumed to exist in the archives and what’s leaked in bootleg circles makes the group a no-brainer candidate for being one of rock’s most preserved acts. Nonetheless, Jimmy Page’s itch for perfectionism has left so little released in the... Read More
Comments: 0September 11th, 2025
Prince & The Revolution's 'Purple Rain' Gets a Splendid "One Step" Single LP Cut from a hi-res transfer of original EQ'd analog master, this reissue creates spectacular three-dimensionality from a bright, glossy '80s production By: Michael FremerPurple Rain arrived in 1984 two years after 1999, Prince's first big critical and commercial success. With songs like "Little Red Corvette" and the title track, It was the record that established his stardom and eventually in the year 1999, it was certified quadruple Platinum. Following his passing in 2016 it again charted, peaking at #7—better than when it was originally released.Quick aside: I was in Minneapolis on April 21st, 2016, the day Prince... Read More
Comments: 17September 11th, 2025
Dr. Dre's Hip Hop Classic Gets a Well-Deserved "One Step" Release From Tape hey boomer! You might actually like this! you'll love the sound for sure By: Michael FremerIn the audiophile ghettos otherwise known as "hi-fi shows" Hip Hop music rarely if ever gets played. Blues? Yes. A lot of blues. Jazz? Yes a lot of jazz. Some classical too, but Hip Hop? Not that I can recall. Some say it's the coarse language. Around the time this now classic Hip Hop album was released late 1992, a Howard Stern Show character named "Stuttering John" (Melendez) stuck a microphone in Walter Cronkite's face at a press event... Read More
Comments: 4August 28th, 2025
'Argus' Marches Off from Analogue Productions Sean Magee's 45 RPM treatment for Analogue Productions polishes the helmet of Wishbone Ash's defining LP By: Abigail DevoeWishbone Ash’s Argus was made in rock-and-roll’s golden age; when labels pelted fistfuls of money at any band with guitars, bass, drums, someone who could shake a tambourine, and someone who could sing harmony. This is evidenced by a minor-gods-canon band like Wishbone Ash getting the esteemed honor of a Hipgnosis cover. Assistant Bruce Atkins was dressed up in a costume borrowed from The Devils and posed over the Verdon Gorge in France. When folding out the jacket,... Read More
Comments: 17August 26th, 2025
More Stellar Shostakovich from Boston: Yo-Yo Ma Digs Deep and also Takes Off in the ‘Cello Concertos Another outstanding recording from Producer/Engineer Shawn Murphy helps stick the landing By: Mark Ward
Deutsche Grammophon rounds off its new cycle of major works by the Russian composer from Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony with another essential purchase for lovers of this composer’s music and dedicated audiophiles. Digital done right.
Read More Comments: 17August 25th, 2025
Analogue Productions' Sonny Rollins "Way Out West" UHQR—What A Long Strange Trip It's Been! was it worth the time and effort? By: Michael Fremer
Our reissue story starts May 27th 2015 at Bernie Grundman mastering, Gower Avenue, Hollywood, CA. Chad Kassem is there, Contemporary Records founder Lester Koenig's son John is there, I am there. Most importantly the master tape of Sonny Rollins' Way Out West is there.
Read More Comments: 25August 25th, 2025
Strong(er) Moonlight POST-PUNK CLASSIC GETS 45TH ANNIVERSARY AAA REISSUE By: JoE SilvaWhere, in 1980, was there room for The Soft Boys? The U.S. charts were distended with the dregs of Disco while England was being detained by the onset of synthpop. No one particularly wanted to know about a band of Cambridge smarties who wrote songs that sounded as if they’d be drawn from a tincture of Yves Tanguy.Still, they had their admirers. And when Robyn Hitchcock leant starboard towards a solo career, most of them disembarked with him. That left two albums and... Read More
Comments: 1August 24th, 2025
"Fleetwood Mac" Gets Rhino High Fidelity Edition a band no longer singing the blues By: Michael FremerThe Buckingham-Nicks, Fleetwood Mac hook-up post the Bob Welch exit created a monster rock group but it took more than a year following the July, 1975 release for Fleetwood Mac to reach No. 1. Fans of the original blues group Fleetwood Mac were mostly disenchanted if not disgusted (my wife), but this group's success cannot be denied. It gave 1975 rockers what they wanted and at this point why it did is a waste of time to reiterate.If you think this release is a... Read More
Comments: 19August 22nd, 2025
Grace Bergere Is A New York Rocker Extraordinaire you want it even darker? By: Michael FremerFirst thought upon seeing Grace Bergere's cover portrait was "punk Ida Lupino" but that's not a good way to start a review since how many readers today know Ida Lupino? So let's just say a young woman with an attitude. A dark attitude. And a genuine one. She doesn't look like a poseur. It goes deep. That's before opening and playing the record and reading the lyrics.It's difficult enough in 2025 to pull off a rock record that... Read More
Comments: 6August 18th, 2025
The Agony and the Ecstasy: Transcendental Late Liszt from Leif Ove Andsnes One of the least known, and most extraordinary, works of the late 19th Century receives a new Benchmark Recording By: Mark Ward
Leif Ove Andsnes is one of those pianists who can always be relied upon to deliver something special, whether it be of standard repertoire, or more off-the-beaten-path goodies. But he has outdone himself with this remarkable recording of a true rarity, and in the process has delivered an hour’s worth of listening guaranteed to take you far away from your everyday cares. There is nothing quite like this in the entire canon of Western classical music.
Read More Comments: 11August 17th, 2025
The Making of Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left Is a Musical Tale Worth Telling (amended 8/20/2025) a rare worthwhile "completist" type box set By: Michael FremerUnlike most "completest" or multi-disc sets containing every snippet of recorded tape that you might listen to once out of curiosity and never again revisit, this thoughtfully curated set covering just Nick Drake's debut album is one that bears repeated listening. It's been on the turntable almost constantly since it arrived shortly after publishing the review of Brad Mehldau's Elliott Smith tribute Ride Into the Sun in which the pianist... Read More
Comments: 7